Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

In the light of the entire procedure we have described, it seems sensible to remind ourselves of the
thesis posed above, that the “production” of the deity and the “destruction” of the person stand in an
originally causal relation to one another, or — to put it even more clearly — that the gods and the
guru who manipulates them feed themselves upon the life energies of the pupil.
The first two initiations, the water and crown initiations, are directed at the purification of the mystic
body. The water initiation (1) corresponds to the bathing of a child shortly after its birth. The five
elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether) become purified in the energy body of the sadhaka.
Subsequently, the guru in the form of Kalachakra imagines that he swallows the initiand who has
melted down to the size of a droplet, then thrusts him out through his penis into the womb of his
partner Vishvamata, who finally gives birth to him as a deity. As already mentioned above, in this
scenario of conception and birth we must not lose sight of the fact that the androgynous guru
simultaneously represents in his person the time god and the time goddess. The complete performance
is thus set in scene by him alone. At the close of the water initiation the master touches the initiand at
the “five places” with a conch shell: the crown, the shoulder, the upper arm, the hip and the thigh.
Here, the shell is probably a symbol for the element of water.
The crown initiation (2) which now follows corresponds to the child’s first haircut. Here the so-called
“five aggregates” of the pupil are purified (form, feeling, perception, unconscious structures,
consciousness). By “purification” we must understand firstly the dissolving of all individual
personality structures and then their “re-creation” as the characteristics of a deity. The procedure is
described thus in the tantra texts; however, to be exact it is not a matter of a “re-creation” but of the
replacement of the pupil’s personality with the deity. At the end of the second initiation the vajra
master touches the “five places” with a crown.
The third and fourth initiations are directed at the purification of speech. In the silk ribbon initiation
(3), the androgynous guru once more swallows the pupil and — in the form of Vishvamata — gives
birth to him as a god. Here the energy channels, which from a tantric way of looking at things
constitute the “mystic framework” of the subtle body, are purified, that is dissolved and created anew.
In the development of the human child this third initiation corresponds to the piercing of the ears, so
that a golden ring can be worn as an adornment.
The vajra and bell initiation (4) follows, which is compared to the speaking of a child’s first words.
Now the guru cleanses the three “main energy channels” in the pupil’s body. They are found
alongside the spine and together build the subtle backbone of the adept, so to speak. The right channel
becomes the masculine vajra, the left the feminine bell (gantha). In the middle, “androgynous”
channel both energies, masculine and feminine, meet together and generate the so-called “mystic
heat”, which embodies the chief event in the highest initiations, to be described in detail later. The
pupil now asks the Kalachakra deity, represented through the guru, to give him the vajra and the bell,
that is, to hand over to him the emblems of androgyny.
Yet again, an act of swallowing takes place in the fifth initiation. The conduct initiation (5)
corresponds to a child’s enjoyment of the objects of the senses. Accordingly, the six senses (sight,
hearing, smell, etc.) and their objects (image, sound, scent, etc.) are destroyed in meditation and recreated
afterwards as divine characteristics. The vajra master ritually touches the pupil’s “five places”
with a thumb ring.